The future may (or may not) have arrived

The year’s not yet over but I believe the 2016 award can be given for The Most Pretentious Seven-Paragraph Story in any newspaper. It appeared here in my morning paper. I’m providing translations for those who can’t read pretentious.

Paragraph one sets the tone. “The Globe and Mail has forged a deal that will make it the largest North American news organization to adopt the Washington Post’s custom-built publishing platform.” (Translation: We gave up trying to figure this out and bought something off the shelf. It’s American; it must be good.)

Called Arc, “the suite of publishing and storytelling tools [were] crafted in-house by the Post over a three-year period.” (Translation: There’s more than one element and if development had gone on any longer, it would have either been obsolete or we’d have to say it had been curated, not crafted.)

In operation, it’s “aiming to be a more nimble platform for online storytelling.” (Translation: We’re not sure it’s really going to work.) “Its modules span a broad digital arsenal … [with] full integration rolling out over the next two years.” (Translation: Whatever it is, readers won’t actually see any change for some time.)

“The use of data analytics married to journalistic gut will allow us to put the audience first, and to provide a rare clarity of priority to the newsroom.” (Translation: Until now we’ve had trouble figuring out what stories to run.) “[Arc] presents an opportunity to change the way we work as a media company, and as a business.” (Translation: We need help; we hope this is our saviour.)